Go Rest High On That Mountain

An Oklahoma boy who made it good.

Longhaired Redneck

I'm shaved bald myself, it seeming the only honorable response to the thinning hair of early middle age; but I found an actual original copy of that album in a local 'vintage/antique' store today while attending Sylva's Mountain Brewfest. David Allan Coe, who just turned 86 last week, would have been honored to know what they wanted for it. It's vinyl, so it sounds worse than the lossless versions you can get easily and cheaply online. 

I bought it anyway; it has several of my favorite of his songs, and there's just something about the physicality of the original thing. 

Nicomachean Ethics IV.11

Here we have a claim that is psychologically interesting, but which might or might not be true.

What is called judgement, in virtue of which men are said to 'be sympathetic judges' and to 'have judgement', is the right discrimination of the equitable. This is shown by the fact that we say the equitable man is above all others a man of sympathetic judgement, and identify equity with sympathetic judgement about certain facts. And sympathetic judgement is judgement which discriminates what is equitable and does so correctly; and correct judgement is that which judges what is true.

You will remember 'the equitable' from V.10. It is one of the virtues that is superior to ordinary justice. Justice itself was said in V.1 to be 'complete virtue, but not absolutely' so you might ask in what way to be equitable is better than to be just. The just is "what is fair and lawful," but the equitable may be "what is fair but more generous than the law requires." Thus, the equitable person is trying to treat the other not merely as the law requires, but in a manner that really befits their circumstances. This applies both to things like business deals -- perhaps your employee deserves some profit-sharing, to be raised to a partnership of some sort, or at least a raise, given their robust contributions -- and also to criminal courts. The sympathetic judge is understanding of the circumstances, and correctly discerns how to adjust the law's requirements to the situation. In this way, the lawfulness requirement proves insufficient to complete virtue in its absolute form (this may be another reason John Rawls thought he could dispose of the lawfulness requirement and cash out 'justice as fairness' alone).

That's not the psychological point I wanted to emphasize. The claim Aristotle is going to make is that this virtue is not just another species of practical reason (phronesis) but a distinct part of the soul. He opens with some evidence against that idea:

Now all the states we have considered converge, as might be expected, to the same point; for when we speak of judgement and understanding and practical wisdom and intuitive reason we credit the same people with possessing judgement and having reached years of reason and with having practical wisdom and understanding.

That sounds like a good argument that these really are the same quality, perhaps just being expressed differently in different situations. In the 19th and 20th century, Gottlob Frege and those who followed his threads pointed out that sometimes you can mistakenly identify the same thing by two different names (this became known as the "Hesperus is Phosphorus" example, because the 'evening star' and 'the morning star' turned out both to be Venus). Here we are observing a quality of excellence of judgment, sometimes towards decisions about fairness towards others and sometimes towards practical actions of one's own. Perhaps they are just the morning star and the evening star, appearing at different times in different places but actually the same thing. 

There developed also in philosophy a whole collection of arguments about the identity of indiscernibles that is relevant here. The problem was raised as soon as the Stoics, so a bit after Aristotle, but it comes down to questions about things like this. We can't really observe the mind/soul, so we can't discern whether phronesis and sugnome and prohairesis are different objects or parts of the mind/soul. Many philosophers have accepted the idea that in these cases you should think you have reason to believe they are the same thing unless you can find qualities that clearly distinguish them. Aristotle has given us distinguishing characteristics: this one is about judgment and that one is about action. Yet it could be one quality applied to multiple problem sets, and it is only the problems that differ rather than the quality of the soul. This might seem especially true given his next remarks about how all these faculties deal with problems of the same basic kind:

For all these faculties deal with ultimates, i.e. with particulars; and being a man of understanding and of good or sympathetic judgement consists in being able judge about the things with which practical wisdom is concerned; for the equities are common to all good men in relation to other men. Now all things which have to be done are included among particulars or ultimates; for not only must the man of practical wisdom know particular facts, but understanding and judgement are also concerned with things to be done, and these are ultimates. And intuitive reason is concerned with the ultimates in both directions; for both the first terms and the last are objects of intuitive reason and not of argument, and the intuitive reason which is presupposed by demonstrations grasps the unchangeable and first terms, while the intuitive reason involved in practical reasonings grasps the last and variable fact, i.e. the minor premiss. For these variable facts are the starting-points for the apprehension of the end, since the universals are reached from the particulars; of these therefore we must have perception, and this perception is intuitive reason.

Intuitive reason's existence as a separate faculty was given in VI.6 as a deduction that none of the other intellectual virtues could do what we ask it to do. Here, though, it's doing something very similar to what judgment and practical reason are said to do, just 'in the other direction.' What Aristotle means by that is that intuitive reason seeks out the first principles, working backwards from the particulars we have encountered in the world to the universals that should be our starting point. This is what was supposed to happen during 'the good upbringing' -- we would be introduced to many stories by respected elders and, using intuitive reason, derive the necessary first principles about what courage is and what justice is and so forth. Once we have those first principles, we are ready to begin the study of ethics.

What judgment and practical reason are doing is working down the chain from those first principles to the particular facts in front of us: we must render a judgment in this particular case, in which this particular person did this particular thing; or we must decide on a particular action we must take right now in these particular circumstances. Aristotle is suggesting that these are three connected but distinguishable parts of the soul. You could perhaps reduce them to two: intuitive reason is a sort of inductive reasoning from given examples to first principles; the other sort is a deductive reasoning from those first principles down to conclusions about actions to take (judgment, in this sense of the word, being a sort of action you take when you issue a judgment). 

Or perhaps it's just one quality, whatever we call it, which works up and down, and which sometimes considers practical matters pertaining to the self and sometimes considers matters facing justice/equity towards others. Aristotle is going to hold that they are different, partly because they appear at different times of life -- and not to everyone.

This is why these states are thought to be natural endowments-why, while no one is thought to be a philosopher by nature, [yet] people are thought to have by nature judgement, understanding, and intuitive reason. This is shown by the fact that we think our powers correspond to our time of life, and that a particular age brings with it intuitive reason and judgement; this implies that nature is the cause. (Hence intuitive reason is both beginning and end; for demonstrations are from these and about these.) Therefore we ought to attend to the undemonstrated sayings and opinions of experienced and older people or of people of practical wisdom not less than to demonstrations; for because experience has given them an eye they see aright.

We have stated, then, what practical and philosophic wisdom are, and with what each of them is concerned, and we have said that each is the virtue of a different part of the soul.

Friday Night Jukebox

Innocent blood

From First Things:

Innocent blood is a powerful reality. It turns the wheel of history. I believe Kirk’s murder will have this effect.

The evil deed of September 10, 2025, will expose the desperation of the old and failed consensus that Kirk opposed. The consensus he hoped to turn us toward, one that restores faith, family, and flag, will triumph.

Nichomachean Ethics VI.10

Fine distinctions continue.

Understanding, also, and goodness of understanding, in virtue of which men are said to be men of understanding or of good understanding, are neither entirely the same as opinion or scientific knowledge (for at that rate all men would have been men of understanding)...

Because all men have opinions, but also because scientific knowledge as Aristotle understands it is about unchangeable things like the truths of mathematics.   

...nor are they one of the particular sciences, such as medicine, the science of things connected with health, or geometry, the science of spatial magnitudes. For understanding is neither about things that are always and are unchangeable, nor about any and every one of the things that come into being, but about things which may become subjects of questioning and deliberation. Hence it is about the same objects as practical wisdom; but understanding and practical wisdom are not the same. For practical wisdom issues commands, since its end is what ought to be done or not to be done; but understanding only judges. (Understanding is identical with goodness of understanding, men of understanding with men of good understanding.)

So the word here given as 'understanding' is sungnome, which Irwin helpfully points out is derived from gnome, 'mind' or 'judgment.' That word is also the root of gnosis, which those of you who are given to Bible Study or the history of thought in the Church will know well enough. 

Irwin translates this as "consideration" or sometimes "pardon," as the best sort of person will often on consideration choose to set aside an inflexible rule. We learned in Book I that the virtuous man is the best judge of virtue and of the virtuous things to do; sometimes you keep the rule, and in some cases you set it aside. (These are, as Aristotle just said, the sort of decisions that require questioning and deliberation.) 

Now understanding is neither the having nor the acquiring of practical wisdom; but as learning is called understanding when it means the exercise of the faculty of knowledge, so 'understanding' is applicable to the exercise of the faculty of opinion for the purpose of judging of what some one else says about matters with which practical wisdom is concerned-and of judging soundly; for 'well' and 'soundly' are the same thing. And from this has come the use of the name 'understanding' in virtue of which men are said to be 'of good understanding', viz. from the application of the word to the grasping of scientific truth; for we often call such grasping understanding.

Thus, the virtuous man is a man of good judgment; he can be trusted to resolve the hard questions that come up in life. 

Random Graffiti

Seen in a bathroom on the wall, not all that long ago and in the Deep South.

Just in case anybody thought they were getting off easy.

You're not the first to face this

Via Instapundit, Sarah Hoyt:

You’re not safe. Life isn’t safe. The world isn’t safe. But you can’t live hiding under the rug. And some things are worth doing. Square your shoulders, decide what you have to do. Then do it. Death will come either from it or from merely living. Death is the price of being alive.

* * *

As for “We can’t reconcile.” and “We can’t share a nation with people like this.” Well, your ancestors did.

After the revolution, after the civil war, wounds were bound, and people learned to live together, even though each had done horrible things to the others.

You will too. And most of them not-media-personalities are mostly dumb, lied to and histrionic. Which is bad enough, but not evil incarnate.

Nicomachean Ethics VI.9

Book VI continues with more fine distinctions. Unhelpfully translations differ, and you really need to know which Greek concept is being put in play. For example, the one we've been using wants to talk about "deliberation."

There is a difference between inquiry and deliberation; for deliberation is inquiry into a particular kind of thing. We must grasp the nature of excellence in deliberation as well whether it is a form of scientific knowledge, or opinion, or skill in conjecture, or some other kind of thing.

You will recall that we already discussed deliberation separately in III.2-3. The translation's use of the term here is ambiguous; the concept Aristotle was discussing in Book III was prohairesis but here it is phronesis, the latter of which began to discuss the other day. If any of you are reading the Irwin translation, he tries to keep the English words he uses linked carefully to the Greek words, but even then you'll see him talk of "inquiry" versus "deliberation" versus "intelligence" versus "wisdom." 

Following this section exactly may not be possible on the first pass. These are intricate distinctions about invisible mental faculties, originally in ancient Greek and now in several English translations. If you really want to map this down, it will take a little time. 

Scientific knowledge it is not; for men do not inquire about the things they know about, but good deliberation is a kind of deliberation, and he who deliberates inquires and calculates. Nor is it skill in conjecture; for this both involves no reasoning and is something that is quick in its operation, while men deliberate a long time, and they say that one should carry out quickly the conclusions of one's deliberation, but should deliberate slowly.

Irwin translates what they are giving as "it is not skill in conjecture" instead as that intelligence "is not good guessing." The problem with even very good guessing is that you could go wrong; what Aristotle is looking for from phronesis is a little more security that you'll choose your actions correctly.

Again, readiness of mind is different from excellence in deliberation; it is a sort of skill in conjecture. Nor again is excellence in deliberation opinion of any sort. But since the man who deliberates badly makes a mistake, while he who deliberates well does so correctly, excellence in deliberation is clearly a kind of correctness, but neither of knowledge nor of opinion; for there is no such thing as correctness of knowledge (since there is no such thing as error of knowledge)...

"There is no such thing as correctness of knowledge" and "there is no such thing as error of knowledge" both sound very suspicious to contemporary readers.  You have to know that Aristotle's definition of knowledge assumes truth: knowledge, per the Posterior Analytics, is "Justified true belief." Thus, your knowledge can't be in error because it would then not be true, and if it's a false belief it wasn't knowledge to begin with. 

So, just as he wants phronesis to be more secure than 'good guessing,' he defines knowledge to be safely true. 

Socrates was aware of this theory of knowledge and had rejected it (at least in Plato's telling), but Aristotle found it satisfactory. This account of knowledge held up a very long time. It was not until the late 20th century that a serious problem was found with it (though the Wikipedia article does give some earlier examples of people asking questions about it). In 1963 kind of a fun challenge was raised by Edmund Gettier, which nobody has yet figured out how to solve. Actually, epistemology is a lot of fun all the way around. Nothing very serious hangs on it (except for little things like knowledge and truth), and it's a great deal of fun to think about.

Underappreciation

Oh, it's far more dangerous than that, Poppy. (That is her name.)

If men like Charlie Kirk can’t even speak to American students without fearing a gunman in the crowd, America is in a far more dangerous place than anyone has so far been willing to concede.

The gunman wasn't in the crowd. He was 200 yards away with a rifle he knew how to use very competently. 

America is a much more dangerous place that you Brits can even imagine. That's the precipice we are on right now. 

Nicomachean Ethics VI.8

This is an important chapter. Today is an inauspicious day for it because of the political murder of the early afternoon, but the wisdom it speaks of is eternal.

Political wisdom and practical wisdom are the same state of mind, but their essence is not the same. Of the wisdom concerned with the city, the practical wisdom which plays a controlling part is legislative wisdom, while that which is related to this as particulars to their universal is known by the general name 'political wisdom'; this has to do with action and deliberation, for a decree is a thing to be carried out in the form of an individual act. This is why the exponents of this art are alone said to 'take part in politics'; for these alone 'do things' as manual labourers 'do things'.

So too we don't assign to legislators but to the bureaucrats who execute and define policy the idea of action. In our system, legislators are mostly fundraisers who delegate authority to bureaucrats. It's the bureaucrats who decide; and the police who execute the decisions not of the legislature, but of the bureaucracy.

Practical wisdom also is identified especially with that form of it which is concerned with a man himself-with the individual; and this is known by the general name 'practical wisdom'; of the other kinds one is called household management, another legislation, the third politics, and of the latter one part is called deliberative and the other judicial.

This is Aristotle carefully avoiding the fallacy of composition. It is commonly and wrongly assumed that knowing how to order one level of human activity -- being a good businessman, for example -- ought to transfer to governance, family leadership, etc. It does not. Many a good businessman is a terrible husband; many a politician couldn't run a business to save their lives.

Now knowing what is good for oneself will be one kind of knowledge, but it is very different from the other kinds; and the man who knows and concerns himself with his own interests is thought to have practical wisdom, while politicians are thought to be busybodies; hence the word of Euripides, [Grim: Shocklingly to English speakers, that is pronounced euro-PEE-dees, as Socrates is soh-KRAT-ees.]

But how could I be wise, who might at ease,

Numbered among the army's multitude,

Have had an equal share?

This Movie Has a Sad Ending

It was a good shot. I didn't know Charlie Kirk from Adam before somebody took that shot and made him famous. The only reason I ever heard his name is that somebody decided to kill him; now I know he was a prophet, apparently.

I guess we've been here before; America has a very bloody political history. The whole world does. Maybe it's only violence that ever solves anything. What a shame.

UPDATE:

Havamal 38. 

Cyberpunk Revolution

The saying he is trying to think of is: "The internet interprets censorship as damage, and routes around it." The internet was designed to keep information available by routing around damage to the network, expected to be caused by nuclear weapons on key nodes, so that we would know enough to keep fighting. Turns out that's what it does, thanks be to God.

Marines & Mules

 

The Glories of Nepal

Every day is a great day for burning down Communist governments, but they picked a beautiful one.

More Luke Bell

Since the first one got such a heartfelt reaction, here's some more.

Nicomachean Ethics VI.7

Book VI continues with an exploration of wisdom.

Wisdom (1) in the arts we ascribe to their most finished exponents, e.g. to Phidias as a sculptor and to Polyclitus as a maker of portrait-statues, and here we mean nothing by wisdom except excellence in art; but (2) we think that some people are wise in general, not in some particular field or in any other limited respect, as Homer says in the Margites,

Him did the gods make neither a digger nor yet a ploughman

Nor wise in anything else. Therefore wisdom must plainly be the most finished of the forms of knowledge. It follows that the wise man must not only know what follows from the first principles, but must also possess truth about the first principles. Therefore wisdom must be intuitive reason combined with scientific knowledge-scientific knowledge of the highest objects which has received as it were its proper completion.

The "highest objects" as Aristotle discusses them are immaterial things of great importance: the soul, the unmoved movers (of which there are several, not one only as with Avicenna and later theological Aristotelians), the Forms as they exist in themselves instead of in things. In fact Aristotle isn't convinced that forms do exist except as immaterial additions to material things; the form of the table is in the table, because the parts have been put into the order of a table. If they were in a heap on the floor, they wouldn't be a table even though they'd still have all and only the same material parts. 

So there is at least an idea of what the form of a table might be, separate from actual tables. It exists, perhaps, in our minds. Perhaps -- Plato wanted to say -- it exists as a feature of reality, that such things as tables are possible and this is what they are like. Aristotle is not convinced of that.

Of the highest objects, we say; for it would be strange to think that the art of politics, or practical wisdom, is the best knowledge, since man is not the best thing in the world.

True, but remarkable given that Aristotle has already praised political science as the highest human good.  

Now if what is healthy or good is different for men and for fishes, but what is white or straight is always the same, any one would say that what is wise is the same but what is practically wise is different; for it is to that which observes well the various matters concerning itself that one ascribes practical wisdom, and it is to this that one will entrust such matters.

It's difficult to know if 'white' or 'straight' is indeed the same for fishes, or bats.  

He's Right, Boys

"When you have horrible killings, you have to take horrible actions."

That's one of those truths I really hate. That doesn't make it less true.

Sometimes you just have to ride it out. That line at the end finishes, “The best thing you can do with death is ride off from it.”

Georgia 2020

It was stolen, obviously. That's around ten times the margin of victory.

Technology Continues to Outstrip Our Philosophy and Ethics

 "Brain in a Box"?  Yes, available for purchase (aimed at researchers).  What are the implications?  We'll figure that out as we go, I guess- onward into the void.

Let's hope that doesn't turn out poorly, but I guess as a species, we are not a patient lot.